UPDATE

as it turns out i have a friend who is an electronics whiz, we were chatting at my place the other night and after a few beers he decided to grab his tool kit from his car and i pulled the PCM from its hole.

after a few um's and ah's his diagnostics had told him that i had low voltage passing across some of the 'fets' that regulate the firing. he told me it would be a matter of taking the serial number off the parts and replacing them. for about $2 each LOL

i am a little reserved about the outcome of this fix, so i have a plan B...a car recycle place do the full PCM replacement kit with key coder etc. for $450 and its a DIY install. Turns out the PCM is $295 new plus all the other bits to go with it. not too bad.

i rang my local Mazda dealer for info on the PCM change over, just to get some "professional" advice...well, what a bunch of di*#heads. no idea at all, one guy who was their head mechanic told me he NEVER has heard of Mazda's having coil problems or PCM problems...i nearly fell of my chair with laughter and then replied "well there is forum on the net with THOUSANDS of people with the same issues". i didnt get much out of him after that...anyway there seems to be a little moral to this story, try and do what you can yourself to save coin and ALWAYS get a second or even third opinion of the problems.

 

LOL!

You got it Rastus! Information is money in the pocket.

Happy motoring!

 

I realize that this is an old thread, but maybe my findings will still help someone.

My problem started when i washed my engine. It started missing and could not get over 3000 rpm. Ended up changing some coil packs that took care of the miss fire. This did nothing for the low power and restricted RPM issues, nor the new shifting issue on my 6 speed auto trans.

Reading in this forum, i found comments about a SB that described my shift problem. Under acceleration, the trans would drop from 6 to 4 and the engine would rev to almost 4000. It would make a sound like the valves were floating.

Found under another post concerning the RPM issue, a comment about checking the catalytic converter. I dropped both the exhaust manifolds, the front was in bad shape, the back was not much better. I gutted both and put them back on as a test. I now could get up to 4000 RPM. Shifting issues continue as does the sound of the valves floating when it does the hard down shift causing the engine to rev..

Reading more on this site, it was mentioned that there are four catalytic converters on this car.. I went back under my car and found two more cans under the middle of the car, dropped the middle section and the front can was a catalytic converter.. It was completely clogged. The next can turned out to only be a resinator. I gutted the catalytic converter, put the exhaust back under the car..

Oh my GOD.. The care will go from 0-70 in about 5 seconds or less, all shift issues are gone , the engine will red line if you don"t let it shift and the car runs like a raped ape.

Now I have to decide if I want to replace the converters or live with the engine check light being on all the time.

Hope this info will help someone.. I had issues going on that all turned out to be caused by clogged converters.

 

misfiring, oil burning all lead to clogged cats. your mileage is high. with your cats gutted, you may get a cel code. Also make sure you drive car in to the ground and don't re-sell it. If you sell it, and someone finds out you gutted cats, you could have a big fine as per: I just bought a used car and discovered the catalytic converter is missing. Is that legal?